I delivered drugs to pharmacies around New Hampshire for a few years, and I was never more aware of how clueless most drivers are regarding the ‘rules of the road’ than I was when I had that job. Almost every day, someone would stop at a highway on-ramp to let me go, even though I had a YIELD sign, and I always wished that some left turning idiot would hit me when they didn’t yield to me at a green light. I got glares and middle fingers everyday because I was exercising my legal right-of-way, and posting a sign to remind drivers of the law doesn’t do anything.
If you are turning left the person behind you will honk because they think you don’t know how to turn left, and you’re just waiting for pedestrians.
Yup, that’s how it’s SUPPOSED to work.
This is standard practice, at least in California. It’s not uncommon for TWO cars to move out into the intersection if it is wide enough for that.
A few years ago, when I was contemplating moving to Oregon, I obtained and studied their Driver Handbook. Apparently, this is NOT legal or permissible there. (But may still be expected for all I know.) As best I could interpret what it said, if you pull into an intersection to make a left turn, and the light turns red while you are still in the intersection, you are now guilty of running a red light.
As for those new-ish left flashing yellow arrows: I had seen them in Oregon a few years ago, and more recently in Nevada too. Those signs alongside them, telling what they mean, are apparently meant to be temporary, only until more drivers learn what they mean.
A few posters above mentioned the “yellow trap”. If you google around for information on the yellow arrows, you can find MANY MANY sites discussing it – mostly, every state that uses them has a page on its DMV web site about it. Many of them have animated graphics showing the signal cycles from multiple directions. Also, there are many sites that discuss the “yellow trap” (which, honestly, I didn’t quite understand) and how the yellow flashing arrow is supposed to solve that.
Go ahead, poke around, find some of those sites. See what you can make of it.
Cynical misanthropes that we all are (right?), I suppose we can widely agree that way to many drivers are idiots (right?) – apparently we really DO need all those stupid signs about yielding to on-coming traffic, pedestrians, ducks, salamanders, and the like.
There must be something new-ish about them. I used to see signs like that here and there. Now, in California, they are EVERYWHERE!
Oregon has a seemingly sensible law about stopping for pedestrians in a multi-lane street: You don’t have to remain stopped until the pedestrian is completely out of the street. Rather, you must stop when a pedestrian is in the same lane you are in (that is, right in front of you – duh) and while the pedestrian is in the adjacent lane to your right or left. Once the pedestrian is farther away than that, you can go. (Someone from Oregon – Twoflower? – am I reading that right?)
OTOH, pilots get much more extensive training than drivers and must be assumed to be a little bit brighter. Yes, there are right-of-way rules for pilots too – but you don’t see signs hanging in the sky saying to yield to pedestrians, or on-coming airplanes. (When two airplanes approach head-on, each is supposed to veer to the right. When two gliders, soaring on a ridge, approach head-on, the one who can turn to the right away from the ridge must do so, while the other goes straight. Etc.)
The song “Driving in Massachusetts” comes to mind.
The green and yellow left turn signals are there to indicate protected left turns and yield to traffic. If neither signal is on that indicates no left turn during that phase, and there’s usually a red light to go along with it.
This and other kinds of signals are adaptations for various kinds of heavy traffic.
This is how I’m accustomed to driving, as a Michigander. The flashing red doesn’t just apply to left turn lanes. At night, a lot of signals go to flashing red on the side streets, and flashing yellow on the main roads. Flashing red simply means stop; proceed when safe. And doing this at night during low traffic means not having to stop for no reason.
As for left turns, the flashing yellow arrow is definitely an improvement on the flashing red. I honor the flashing red, but a lot of drivers don’t. The difference is, flashing red means stop. Period. Then go, if safe. Flashing yellow means I don’t have to waste my time stopping if it’s blatantly obvious that there’s no oncoming traffic. Although the flashing red should be easy to understand I can get all “get of my grass” about change, the arrows are a real improvement.
One interesting observation about those flashing left yellow arrows:
The flashing left yellow arrow is always a separate lamp fixture from the solid (non-flashing) left yellow arrow. I read somewhere is in the regulations for it to be that way.